DESIGN METHODS FOR PROFILED STEEL DECKS WITH INTERMEDIATE STIFFENERS

Thin-walled cold-formed profiled steel decking panels with intermediat e stiffeners may exhibit distortional buckling involving transverse fl exure of the stiffener Local buckling in the flat plate elements betwe en the flanges and webs may also occur. Varying degrees of post-buckle d strength reserve may be encountered in sections undergoing focal and /or distortional buckling. The extent of post-buckled strength reserve , as well as the ultimate moment capacity of the panel, are of interes t to designers in. their efforts to produce more efficient sections. U ltimate moment results for 27 profiled decking specimens tested in ben ding are compared with estimates derived using a number of design stan dards, The standards used were the AISI LRFD Cold-formed Steel Structu res Specification 1991, Eurocode 3/Part 1.3, and Australian Standard A S1538-1988. Several additional methods for predicting the ultimate mom ent capacity have been proposed recently and these are also compared w ith the test results. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.